Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

SPEAKER 1: It's hard to get into farming, if you're starting from scratch. Now, just South of the Twin Cities of Northfield, nonprofit is helping a group of new farmers grow food to support their communities and families, while also giving the environment a helping hand. Hannah Yang has the story.

HANNAH YANG: On a windy day outside in rural Northfield, a group of farmers from Sharing Our Roots in t-shirts and jeans walk through rows of a neatly plowed field. New growth pokes through the soil. In the distance, sheep and lambs are grazing in a pasture restored to improve topsoil health.

The 17-year-old nonprofit Sharing Our Roots is trying something new. It is creating a support system for beginning and newly emerging farmers and BIPOC farmers. Executive Director Rocky Casillas Aguirre says the nonprofit opened up its 100 acres this year to prospective farmers in the area.

ROCKY CASILLAS AGUIRRE: Land access is the single largest barrier to emerging farmers and farmers of color. A lot of these farmers can't afford land in this area.

HANNAH YANG: So Sharing Our Roots offers a home base for farmers for as long as they want to be a part of the project. Some move on to purchase their own land eventually to grow their business enterprise. Others stay and continue feeding their families right off the land.

This is Elkanah Abobo's second planting season with Sharing Our Roots. He grows tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. He's also planted traditional Kenyan vegetables such as managu, African nightshade, and chinsaga, African spider flower.

SPEAKER 4: It's not easy to get them in the market unless the Africans who have planted them, when after they harvest them and they have enough, they can take to the market and sell them there.

HANNAH YANG: Abobo's neighbors in the plot, Ariceli Baez and [INAUDIBLE] from Veracruz are busy, too.

SPEAKER 5: Onions, tomatoes, cilantro, beans, flowers, hot peppers, jalapenos.

HANNAH YANG: They're planting cilantro peppers and tomatoes to feed their own families.

SPEAKER 5: One of those plants is in the Mexican store, but the taste is not the same.

HANNAH YANG: Baez says the most exciting thing for them this season is being able to be outside with their friends after two years of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SPEAKER 5: Everything is natural, everything. Organic food is more expensive. But here we plant everything, and it's not too expensive for us, because we're here, everything here.

HANNAH YANG: Executive Director Aguirre says by removing barriers, the fact farmers can have a voice in what foods they eat and grow is essential in addressing long-standing disparities in rural food systems.

ROCKY CASILLAS AGUIRRE: To give them that sense of security and stability to be able to do something for themselves and be able to build wealth or equity from the work that they're doing.

HANNAH YANG: Lack of food access in Southern Minnesota disproportionately affects immigrants, BIPOC, and low-income families.

ROCKY CASILLAS AGUIRRE: Our community can feed itself. There's no need to do any importing or exporting of food we can all grow it here it's just a matter of putting capital and resources in the right places.

HANNAH YANG: During the pandemic, Sharing Our Roots focused on producing and distributing healthy foods to families in five Northfield, Faribault neighborhoods. Within two years, they delivered more than 2,250 pounds of vegetables to more than 200 households and more than 1,000 pounds of chicken to residents. The new farmers also learn conservation practices to help restore soil health and water quality. Aguirre says it's part of the effort to reverse the effects of climate change on what had been a conventional corn and soybean operation for decades.

ROCKY CASILLAS AGUIRRE: So it looked just like every other farm in this area. And some of my work has been to document the return of wildlife to this space, which is a-- it's an indicator that our regenerative practices do help with land restoration.

HANNAH YANG: There are 14 farmers in this year's cohort. Another group of local farmers are also raising sheep to rent out to power companies to eat weeds on solar farms.

SPEAKER 4: I'm talking about my neighbors here.

HANNAH YANG: Elkahan Abobo says that not only did he make friends, but he's able to provide for his family.

SPEAKER 4: The experience that I'm learning here is that to empower other people, and we can be able to have enough food that we can supply also to the communities, and also that we can sell and save some money.

HANNAH YANG: Abobo dreams he'll build on what he's learned and earned from Sharing Our Roots, and one day he'll own a farmstead of his own. Hannah Yang, MPR News, Northfield.